Henry Holland, 1st Baronet

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Sir Henry Holland, 1st Baronet (born October 27, 1788 in Knutsford , † October 27, 1873 in London ) was an English doctor and traveler.

biography

Sir Henry Holland, portrayed by Thomas Brigstocke (National Portrait Gallery, London)
Sir Henry Holland, photographed shortly before his death by Barraud & Jerrard (Wellcome Collection)

Holland was born in Knutsford as the son of the doctor Peter Holland (1766-1853) and Mary Willets; his cousin was the well-known writer Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865). In his youth he also met Charles Darwin , since both were related (through Henry's mother, a niece of Josiah Wedgwood ); with him he maintained a lifelong friendship.

Holland received his education first in Newcastle upon Tyne , then (from 1803) in Bristol . From October 1806 he studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh , whose renowned medical faculty at that time attracted numerous students from England. In the fall of 1811 he completed his studies. By that year he had already made it a membership of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh and an honorary membership in the Geological Society , which had recently been founded in London , and in 1816 he was admitted to the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge (short : Royal Society ).

He soon became a well-known doctor and counted many people from the high nobility, and finally from the British royal family, among his patients, namely Queen Caroline, William IV and Queen Victoria . The peers Holland met early in his career included a. Lord Lansdowne and Lord Aberdeen ; but he also associated with Lord Byron and Sir Humphry Davy . In 1853 he was raised as a baronet (of Sandlebridge) to the hereditary (albeit lower) nobility ( gentry ) and then bore this title as the first of his name; besides, he could now call himself "Sir".

At the age of 34 he married Margaret Emma Caldwell (1795-1830), who was seven years his junior; the couple had four children, two sons and two daughters. After the early death of his first wife, Holland married Saba Smith (1802–1866), the daughter of the well-known cleric and humorist Sydney Smith (1771–1845) in 1834. This second marriage resulted in two daughters, Caroline and Gertrude.

Sir Henry Holland died on his 85th birthday in London in 1873 , having just returned from a trip to Rome and Moscow. He was buried in St. Mary's Churchyard in Willesden , London (borough of Brent).

to travel

Holland's fame is largely based on his travels and, in particular, on a travelogue that first appeared in 1815. Even before his studies, Holland is said to have expressed the desire to become a businessman because he hoped it would make a life of traveling. In fact, he was apprenticed to a merchant in Liverpool for a short time from 1804–1805 - despite his father's little enthusiasm for this career choice - but in 1806 he decided to study medicine. But his wish to travel a lot in his life was to come true.

Holland visited Iceland and the Faroe Islands (1810), Spain and Portugal (1812), Epirus, Thessaly, Thessaloniki and Athens (1812–1813), Germany, Switzerland and Italy (1814), France and the Netherlands during his long life Netherlands (1815). He made the trip in 1814 as personal physician to Caroline von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel , who was Princess of Wales and Queen of England through her marriage to Georg IV .

In January 1816, Holland began his career as a resident doctor in London, and in 1820 he moved into the house on Brook Street, which he would live in until his death. But his professional commitments did not prevent him from continuing to make many, mostly long and arduous journeys. He himself says in his memoirs that between 1815 and 1872 he only experienced two years in which he did not take at least a two-month autumn trip. The list of these trips, in Holland's own words, is impressive:

"In the series of these annual journeys, which seldom exceeded the time just mentioned, I have visited (and most of them repeatedly) every single capital of Europe — have made eight voyages to the United States and Canada, traveling over more than 26,000 miles of the American continent — one voyage to Jamaica, and other West Indian Islands — have been four times in the East, visiting Constantinople, various parts of Asia Minor, Damascus, Jerusalem, and Cairo — have made three tours in Algeria, two journeys in Russia, several in Sweden and Norway, repeated visits to Spain, Portugal, and Italy, a second visit to Iceland, voyages to the Canary Isles, Madeira, Dalmatia, & c., And other excursions which it would be tedious to enumerate. "
“As part of these annual trips, which rarely went beyond the period mentioned, I visited (and most of them more than once) every single capital in Europe; I made eight trips to the United States and Canada, covering more than 26,000 miles in the Americas; a trip to Jamaica and other West Indies; I was in the Orient four times and visited Constantinople, various regions in Asia Minor, Damascus, Jerusalem and Cairo; I made three trips to Algeria, two trips to Russia, several trips to Sweden and Norway, repeated visits to Spain, Portugal and Italy, a second visit to Iceland; Trips to the Canary Islands, Madeira, Dalmatia, etc .; and other excursions that would be tiresome to list. "
The Tempe Valley in Thessaly, from Hollands Travels in the Ionian Isles (Ed. 1819)

Holland undertook some of these trips at an advanced age, for example to Morocco in 1868, to Jamaica in 1870 or (for the second time) to Iceland in 1871. He stayed in the USA. a. during the US Civil War , for example in Virginia in 1863, where he visited the outposts of the Union Army. He visited Constantinople and Asia Minor in 1861, visiting Wallachia on the way and crossing the Black Sea. And he omitted to mention in the list cited above that he was in Finland in 1830 and in southern France in 1833. Nor does he mention that he traveled through Holstein and Denmark in 1848. He stayed in Algeria during the late 1830s and 1840s when the French, under General Bugeaud, began to subdue all of Algeria by force. Since 1818 he also frequented Spa in Belgium, at that time part of the Netherlands and a renowned spa town .

Travels in the Ionian Isles, & c. (1815)

Travels in the Ionian Isles , title page of the first edition, 1815

This travelogue, first published in one volume and then in two volumes (with a map) in 1819, mainly describes the trips that Holland undertook in the eastern Mediterranean in 1812–1813. The preface is dated "Rome, 31st October, 1814". It has been claimed that Holland traveled to Greece with the archaeologists William Gell (1777–1836) and Richard Keppel Craven (1779–1851). However, this does not emerge from Holland's book (or from Gell's writings); in fact, Holland's travel companion was a certain J. Ramsay, whom Holland had met in Messina and who joined him. Gell traveled to Greece in 1811 (and possibly in the two following years), but together with the architects Francis Octavius ​​Bedford (1784-1858) and John Peter Gandy.

Holland's book contains an introductory chapter about the journey to Greece, which took place via Portugal, Sardinia and Sicily. The main parts of the report, however, deal with Epirus and northern Thessaly, and here especially the person of Ali Pasha , who resided in Ioannina (then Yanya ) and with whom Holland met several times. Ali Pascha, who had built up a de facto autonomous rule in the areas of today's north-west Greece, Albania and North Macedonia since 1807, was of outstanding importance for the political conditions in the Ottoman Empire at that time and was also a figure well-known in western Europe.

The onward journey first led north to Thessaloniki , before heading to Delphi , Attica and Athens in southern Greece . Finally Holland and his companion made it back to Epirus and further into northern Albania.

The so-called " Ionian Islands " - the u. a. Corfu, Kefalonia, Ithaka and Zakynthos - were at the time of Holland's trip, in the years 1812-1813, still under French protectorate, but a few years later (1815), now under the name United States of the Ionian Islands , came under the Protectorate of Great Britain, under which they remained until 1864.

Fonts

  • 1808: General View of the Agriculture of Cheshire . London: R. Phillips
    • New edition 1813: General View of the Agriculture of Cheshire; with Observations on the Means of its Improvement. Drawn up for the Consideration of the Board of Agriculture and Internal Improvement . London: Sherwood, Neely, and Jones ( Google )
  • 1811: Dissertatio medica inauguralis, de morbis Islandiae . Edinburgh: R. Allan
  • 1811: " A Sketch of the Natural History of the Cheshire Rock-Salt District ". In: Transactions of the Geological Society , 1st series, Volume I (London 1811), pp. 38-62
  • 1815: Travels in the Ionian Isles, Albania, Thessaly, Macedonia, & c. during the Years 1812 and 1813 . London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown ( Google )
    • A second, only insignificantly changed English edition was published in 2 volumes by the same publisher, London 1819 ( Google: Volume I ) ( Google: Volume II )
    • German edition of the first edition: New journeys of the English. Volume III: Dr. Holland's travels through the Jonian Islands, Albania, Thessaly, Macedonia and Greece in 1812 and 1813 . Jena: August Schmid and Comp. 1816 ( Google )
    • Digital version, Cambridge University Press 2012 ( Google )
  • 1839: Medical Notes and Reflections . London: Longman, Orme, Browne, Green, and Longman. A second edition appeared in 1840 ( Google )
    • German edition: Remarks and considerations from the field of medicine . Ex. Joseph Wallach. Heidelberg: Karl Groos 1840
  • 1852: Chapters on Mental Physiology . London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans ( Google )
  • 1862: Essays on Scientific and other Subjects Contributed to the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews. New Edition . London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green ( Google )
    • German edition: Sir Henry Holland's essays of scientific and literary content . 2 volumes. Hamburg: Lührsen 1864
  • 1872: Recollections of Past Life . New York: D. Appleton and Company ( Google )
    • Digital version, Cambridge University Press 2011 ( Google )
  • 1875 (posthumously, edited by his son Rev. Francis James Holland): Fragmentary Papers on Science and other Subjects . London: Longmans, Green & Co. ( archive )

literature

  • William Fergusson Irvine: A History of the Family of Holland of Mobberley and Knutsford in the County of Chester, with Some Account of the Family of Holland of Upholland and Denton in the County of Lancaste r, from Materials Collected by the Late Edgar Swinton Holland . Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh 1902.
  • Soultana Ralousi: A British Physician in Greece: The Travel of Sir Henry Holland in Epirus and Macedonia in 1812 . Thesis (MA) Università degli studi della Tuscia: Facoltà di lingue e letterature straniere moderne, Viterbo 2011.
  • Fani-Maria Tsigakou: The Rediscovery of Greece. Travelers and Painters of the Romantic Era . Thames & Hudson, London 1981, p. 190.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See also John Chapple: Elizabeth Gaskell: The Early Years . Manchester University Press, Manchester 1997.
  2. ↑ a b c Thornber, " Sir Henry Holland ".
  3. ↑ The report of this trip was written by Sir George Steuart Mackenzie: Travels in the Island of Iceland, During the Summer of the Year MDCCCX . Second edition. Edinburgh: Archibald Constable and Company 1812; new, revised edition 1842. Holland's own diary of travel ("The Iceland Journal of Henry Holland, 1810", edited by Andrew Wawn) was not published until 1987 by the Hakluyt Society .
  4. ^ Holland, Recollections (1872), p. 151.
  5. ↑ Holland, Recollections (1872), p. 33 f.
  6. ^ Holland, Recollections (1872), p. 41.
  7. ^ Holland, Recollections (1872), p. 58.
  8. ^ Holland, Recollections (1872), p. 60.
  9. ^ Holland, Recollections (1872), p. 153.
  10. ↑ Andrew Nicholson: The Letters of John Murray to Lord Byron . University Press, Liverpool 2007, pp. 131 .
  11. ^ Holland, Travels (1815), p. 10.
  12. ^ Bianca Riccio: "William Gell: cenni biografici" . In: Bianca Riccio (ed.): William Gell, archeologo, viaggiatore e cortigiano. Un inglese nella Roma della restaurazione . Gangemi Editore, Rome 2013.
  13. ↑ According to Craig Thornber, " Sir Henry Holland ".
personal data
SURNAME Holland, Henry, 1st Baronet
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English doctor and traveler
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1788
PLACE OF BIRTH Knutsford
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 1873
Place of death London